The Fridman Gallery, based on Bowery in New York City, is opening its section location in Beacon on Saturday, May 1 from 12 - 9 pm. According to the Gallery Director and former Matteawan gallery owner, Karlyn Benson, the inaugural exhibition will feature Nanette Carter, Athena LaTocha and Wura-Natasha Ogunji. “Its title,” says Karlyn, Land Escape, refers to the artists’ use of a variety of media to create—rather than represent—landscapes.”

The Fridman Gallery has stepped into the space that artist Jeffery Terreson once occupied for a few years in Beacon. Prior to that, it was known as The Back Room, serving as a gallery for the artist who lived there in the apartments above. Art supplies were sold out of the space.

As with the artist previously in the space, the Fridman Gallery, owned by Iliya Fridman, has befriended the Howland Cultural Center, Iliya tells the Highlands Current in an interview, which has warmed the outdoor green space that exists between them. The opening will culminate at 8pm with an outdoor audio-visual performance by Victoria Keddie, using NASA’s live feed of space debris orbiting above Beacon. The performance is the first in a series of outdoor events presented on the first Saturday of each month with The Howland Cultural Center, located next door.

About The Exhibit

Carter applies layers of paint, markers, and pencil on Mylar to produce textural and luminous fictional worlds. Her new series, The Weight, alludes to land, sea, sky, underwater and outer space and pays homage to the mysteries of nature, human nature, and the contemporary burdens we bear in the 21st century.

LaTocha uses the power of weather and time to develop the intricate textures and undulating surfaces of her works, often employing unusual tools such as shredded tires, bricks, and stones to create new geological forms. LaTocha will present Studies for Bulbancha, a recent series of works made with earth and moss from the natural environment of the Mississippi delta.

Ogunji’s drawings in ink on architectural tracing paper often include subtle, hand-stitched details. Her compositions explore memory, history, and impossible moments in time. For Land Escape, in addition to the drawings, Ogunji will create a site-specific installation of vibrant hanging threads in the gallery's street-facing windows.

About the Artists:

Nanette Carter is a mixed-media artist who works, primarily, with oils on frosted Mylar. Working with intangible ideas such as the advancement of technology, the pervasive use of social media, and social injustice, Nanette Carter employs an abstract vocabulary of form, line, color, and texture to chronicle the issues of our time.

Athena LaTocha's works on paper explore the relationship between human-made and natural worlds and incorporate a variety of materials: inks, ash, lead, earth, wood. LaTocha’s immersive process responds to the storied and, at times, traumatic cultural histories that are rooted in specific places, such as the Mississippi River, the World Trade Center, or the Trinity Site in New Mexico.

Wura-Natasha Ogunji’s drawings and stitchings on tracing paper, videos and public performances are deeply inspired by the daily interactions and frequencies that occur in the city of Lagos, Nigeria, from the epic to the intimate. Ogunji's performances explore the presence of women in public space, often at the intersection of labor, leisure, freedom and frivolity.